This Was Me
by almost-never
Summary: [One-Shot: Manny] "Reality. Ugh. I’d much rather live the Barbie life."


**Disclaimer**: I own Manny's discarded food and clothes, but nothing else. And the poem in the introduction.

**A/N**: This is a warning: This story consists of angst-ridden reflections and the dramatic woes of life. It was written before Season 4 aired, so pretend the Spinner and Manny flirty-thing doesn't exist, okay?

_This was me  
__When I was younger  
__I was naïve  
__Stupid  
__Foolish  
__This was me  
__With regrets  
__But this is me now  
__Pretending to be okay  
__Pride to the world  
__Pretending, still,with desperate bravado  
__But this was me, before._

**This Was Me**

The apartment was a cluttered mess. Clothes were strewn on the floor and empty pizza boxes and Chinese takeout containers lay on the beer-stained couch. But I didn't care. I _hadn't_ cared for a long time now.

I was stretched out on my dusty floor, my head resting on a black tank top that I faintly recalled donning a month ago. _So this was how it felt to be truly alone_.

It all started in my first year of high school. Everything that mattered to me was clothes, friends…and Craig Manning. I was so stupid. I remembered feeling ecstatic, happier than I had felt in weeks when he decided to ask me out. I remember having a fantastic evening, then falling asleep, so certain that I was no longer Manuela Santos: I was Mrs. Craig Manning. And I remembered the way my heart shattered the next day, when that asshole decided he didn't like me. I thought I was going to die. Really, I did.

So I saved myself. Or so I thought. I decided that I would change myself for him. I would make myself desirable for any straight guy with eyes. _I would show him that I could be all he wanted. And more._

And I had done it. I had snagged him, from right under ice-queen Ashley's dainty little nose. I proved to everyone that I wasn't just a cute little girl.

But in the process, I gave up everything: my friendship with JT, Toby, and even _Emma_. I gave up the trust my parents had in me when I found out I was pregnant. And I gave up a piece of myself when I locked up my hot pink stuffed rabbit, my friendship bracelets from camp years ago, and flower-print T-Shirts in a big trunk and kept it, hidden out of sight, under my bed.

So maybe I didn't actually save myself. Maybe I did the opposite. I was at the border of the Land of No Return. All I needed to do, now, was to cross it. I was so close.

And I did. Cross it, that is. But I hadn't wanted to. It was a mistake! A fucking mistake. I had wanted Craig so badly that I didn't stop to think of the consequences. And maybe he wanted me too.

_He wanted me too_. I dwelled on that thought for weeks, assuring myself that my out-of-control life was fine. That I wasn't totally abandoned, even though no one would look at me in a way that made me feel as though I was _appreciated_. No, now I was _Manny Santos: School Slut_. That, and the _Little Whore who Got Herself Pregnant _when Ashley Kerwin just _had_ to open her big mouth.

I tried. I really tried to pull myself out of that deep, gaping hole into which I had dug myself. But I couldn't. Wherever I went; in the girls' washroom, in the classrooms, or _even in the streets_, people saw me as a slut.

_Slut_. What an ugly, underrated word. I thought that someone would be considered a slut, in Degrassi, if they were to wear showy clothes and got action from guys. But I was wrong. _So wrong_. I mean, Amy, who dated Emma ex-boyfriend, pressed her arms to her sides, whenever she had the chance, to enhance her bulging cleavage. Even _Paige_, who led all that name-calling wore flashy clothes sometimes. But no, apparently the word, slut, was saved just for me. _Whoopie_. I could hardly contain my excitement.

I know that in a world that was fair, I would have deserved everything that came to me. But life _wasn't_ fair, so I expected better.

I expected my sorry life to turn around, just like _that_. I expected Emma to run up to me and we'd apologize and be friends forever. I expected all the boys to stop looking at me as if I were some tasty candy bar they all wanted to sample. I expected the girls to stop glaring at me and accept me as _one of them_; just a girl who was trying to figure out who she was in this messed up world. I even expected Craig to take me back, even after I had dashed his high hopes of having a family of his own.

_Expectations_. They get you so high, as if everything were going to be alright, just because your gut said so. And you thought you knew something or someone so well that they would finally meet the bar you had set for them. Well, what if your gut was wrong? Then, what do you do?

I left. I just simply _left_. One night, during the summer after my junior year, I packed all of my possessions, left a note for my parents, and made a quick $50 bucks for a taxi ride after letting a guy touch me in an alleyway. Pure desperado, that was.

I got a cheap apartment in a dingy neighbourhood that reeked of smoke and piss using the money my parents had left me for college. I got a job as a cashier and lived my life repeating, "That'll be $4.39," or "Here's your receipt." My face would hurt every time I tried to fake a smile at a customer. What a sad, sad life I lived.

_I was alone_.

It was a scary thought, the prospect of being alone. When I was younger, I had always envisioned myself like a dark-haired Barbie: pretty, popular, and surrounded by adoring people who were slightly lesser than me. I would live in a nice house, have a nice job, and have time to take my equally beautiful daughter to the park and come home everyday and cook dinner (I would be a wonderful chef) for a loving Craig…I mean, Ken.

And now for a reality check: me, alone, broke, and careless. I was living in a disgusting apartment that had cockroach infestations from time to time, had a _boring_ job, had guys slapping my ass everywhere I went, and was surrounded by people who didn't know, or care, that I existed. I would go home everyday, order whatever was on the tokens they'd slip into my mail slot, and eat by myself.

Reality sucks. I'd much rather live the Barbie life.

But it was my fault. If everything had been different…if Craig hadn't transferred to Degrassi, if I had moved on after he deemed myself unworthy of his love, if I had held myself back after he and Ashley fought…

_If, if, if_. I couldn't do all that. It wouldn't be true to _me_, and my heart.

But what _was_ "me"? A 17 year old girl who was _supposed_ to go to college in the fall? Who was going to spend her birthday (next week) handing people receipts? A girl who just wanted somebody to care for, and would care for her in return?

I closed my eyes now, shutting out the image of the brown stain on the ceiling that I had been listlessly gazing at.

I was broken, just waiting for someone to fix me up, sew me back together and tell me everything would be alright in the morning. But as far as I knew, no one was going to come to my rescue. No one was going to save me. I was going to die, on my own, and _no one would know_. And no one would care.

When had I become such a _cynic_? I used to be so bubbly, _cute, _and all-smiles, someone who everyone liked and had no problem getting along with. What had happened to me?

Heart-break happened to me. The harshness of life happened to me. Hell, _I_ happened to me, if that makes sense at all. I think it did.

Maybe this was who I was supposed to become, all along. Maybe I wasn't _meant_ to be _bubbly, cute and all-smiles. _Maybe I was destined to be someone deeper, whose life didn't need anything other than depending on me.

And who was to argue with fate? It wasn't something that was easily corrupted, no matter how hard you tried.

All this pondering left me numb and hollow inside. Or maybe I had been like that all along. I was pretty much dead, anyway. How much more emptier could I get?

Not very. So this was my life as an urban hermit. This was my destiny: to be alone. To live life weighed down with regret and loss.

No. _Not destiny. Never destiny_. I sat up suddenly, wincing slightly as I felt a slight prick in my neck. I glanced at the digital clock on my grease-covered microwave. 6:39 PM.

I reached for my cell phone but my hand paused just inches from it.

_And what would you do, Manny? Who're you gonna call? How are you gonna make everything better after years of alienation and isolation?_

_No one. You've got no one._

My head fell against the floor once more.

This loneliness, it was my fault. My fault entirely, because I screwed up, over and over again.

I closed my eyes again, feeling worn and old. Strange, wasn't it, feeling old at 17?

I would live my life the way I had done for awhile now. Just trying to scrape by, living on the leap of faith that someone actually _cared_.

But whatever. I would wait and watch everything unfold. I would find out my purpose in this world.

I would wait and see.

But for the time being_, this was me_.

**The End**

I don't know if this story really made sense, but you can tell me what you thought of it in your **review**!


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